President Joe Biden plans to reopen the majority of schools K-8 in his first 100 days in office but the administration faces an unusual obstacle in the way of achieving that goal, and that is the California Teachers Association (CTA).
Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom is pushing for the reopening of schools by offering financial incentives to schools that return to in-person learning but the initiative has failed as the unions say they want all members vaccinated before returning.
Even if districts push for in-person learning, teachers can go strike like they did in Chicago. California was the first state to issue a statewide stay-at-home order in March impacting 6 million public school students in the Golden State. (RELATED :‘My Son Is About To Die’: Parents Share Son’s Suicide Attempt, Mental Health Struggles)
.@MikeBloomberg urges @JoeBiden to stand up to teachers’ unions:
“What we’re doing to poor kids is a disgrace. These poor kids are not in school. They will never recover from this… the virtual classes are a joke…
Teachers just are going to have to suck it up.” pic.twitter.com/t4DszX9AtQ
— Washington Examiner (@dcexaminer) February 3, 2021
“The unions are deeming it unsafe to go back,” Breanna Thompson, a 5th grade teacher in Southern California, told the Daily Caller. Thompson supports returning to in-person learning after seeing the negative impacts remote learning is having on her students. “One of the solutions would be to focus more on mental health and lighten the workload,” Thompson adds.
San Francisco becomes first city in California to sue its own school district to reopen https://t.co/EDVyDH7CID
— Newsweek (@Newsweek) February 4, 2021
“The virus is in charge right now and it does not own a calendar,” a letter released by the CTA in response to Newsom’s push for reopening schools said.”We cannot just pick an artificial calendar date and expect to flip a switch on reopening every school for in-person instruction.”
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